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Nuclear power is a stable and reliable energy source that can improve energy structure while reducing carbon emissions, which is of great significance for environmental protection and combating climate change. As a unique industry, it is facing rare development opportunities in China and has broad market prospects. However, the characteristics of technical difficulty, loose organizational structure and uneven regional distribution limit the expansion of the nuclear power industry. This paper aims to a better understanding of the accumulation process for innovation capability from the perspective of network evolution and provides policy guidance for the market development of the nuclear power industry (NPI).

Methodologically, social network analysis is used to explore the co-evolution of multidimensional collaboration networks. First, the development and policy evolution of the NPI is introduced to divide the evolution periods. Then, the authors identify and analyze the core organizations, technologies and regions that promote nuclear power patent collaboration. Furthermore, three levels of collaboration networks based on organizations, technologies and regions are constructed to analyze the coevolution of patent networks in China’s NPI.

The results show that nuclear power enterprises always play the foremost role in the organizational collaboration network (OCN), and the dominance of foreign enterprises is replaced by Chinese state-owned enterprises in the third period. The technology hotspot has shifted from nuclear power plant construction to the control system. The regional collaboration network was initially formed in the coastal areas and gradually moved inland, with Guangdong and Beijing becoming the two cores of the network. The scale of three collaboration networks is still expanding but the speed has slowed down.

In response to the pain points of the NPI, this research focuses on multidimensional collaborative innovation, investigates the dynamic evolution process of collaborative innovation networks in China’s NPI and links policy evolution with network evolution creatively. The ultimate result not only helps nuclear power enterprises integrate innovative resources in complex environments but also promotes industrial upgrading and market development.

This chapter examines factors that maximize collaboration among various stakeholders with the purpose of health policy making in Turkey. The field research reveals that policy networks have been formed in the sub-areas of public health, healthcare construction, and health tourism in the years between 2011 and 2015. Content analysis of 24 semi-structured interviews with policy and professional experts is conducted to assess Network Collaborative Capacity, built upon three dimensions, namely, structural, relational, and institutional. The findings reveal that networks differ in their capacity to collaborate as well as their impact on policy making resulting in three distinct models of network policy making. In the cases under investigation, network impact takes the form of (a) policy innovation through expertise sharing and evidence-based policy making associated with particularly high levels of relational capacity; (b) policy effectiveness through contract enforcement within a clear legal framework associated with particularly high levels of institutional capacity; and (c) policy coherence through organizational-knowledge-sharing and actor coordination. Findings also suggest that institutionalization in the form of network embeddedness in the surrounding political and economic environment is crucial for maintaining a collaborative momentum as well as achieving policy effectiveness at the stage of policy implementation. Based on these findings, further studies should focus on the institutionalization of policy networks, particularly in those middle-income countries such as Turkey that aim and often fail to address various policy challenges through short-lived practices of multi-stakeholder action. Finally, this study emphasizes the importance of incorporating neo-institutional approaches to network analysis.

This study aims to explore the effect of collaboration networks (domestic and international collaboration networks) on the innovation performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It also investigates the mediating role of business model innovation, the moderating role of entrepreneurial orientation and government institutional support between them.

Hierarchical regression analysis is adopted to test the hypotheses based on survey data provided by 223 manufacturing SMEs in China.

The results reveal that domestic and international collaboration networks positively affect SMEs' innovation performance. Business model innovation mediates domestic and international collaboration networks-SMEs’ innovation performance relationships. Entrepreneurial orientation positively moderates international collaboration networks–SMEs’ innovation performance relationship, and government institutional support positively moderates domestic and international collaboration networks–SMEs’ innovation performance relationships.

The findings indicate that managers of SMEs should invest in domestic and international collaboration networks and business model innovation to enhance SMEs' innovation performance. Moreover, entrepreneurial orientation and government institutional support should be valued when SMEs try to enhance their innovation performance by embedding in domestic and international collaboration networks.

This study broadens the authors' understanding of the relationship between collaboration networks and firms' innovation performance by classifying collaboration networks into domestic and international dimensions and investigating their direct impacts on SMEs' innovation performance. Besides, this study reveals how and when domestic and international collaboration networks influence the innovation performance of SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how start-ups with a clear sustainability focus collaborate with multiple actors at different levels to pursue business ideas and develop sustainable freight transport solutions.

This paper builds on a theoretical approach that includes three levels of analysis: the actor level (micro), business-network level (meso) and society and government level (macro). An embedded case study is used of a focal start-up aiming to innovate on networked platforms and electric and autonomous vehicles (EAVs).

Activities and resources are developed at the firm (micro), network (meso) and societal levels (macro), and all three levels need to be considered for a start-up, with a clear sustainability focus. Interaction within as well as between levels affects the innovation development, integration and implementation. The many-folded collaborations at the meso level serve as a locus for the integration of EAVs. The start-up’s networking activities with actors at meso and macro levels contribute to it gaining legitimacy in the transport system.

This paper focuses on the importance of collaboration in the context of developing innovative solutions for environmental sustainability and freight transport and provides a unique case of how a start-up company manages collaborations at the micro, meso and macro levels.

This paper examines the role of co-inventor collaboration with China and/or the USA on a country's increase in centrality in global knowledge networks. It also explores the role of specific institutional factors – corruption and intellectual property rights (IPR) protection – on this relationship.

In the study, co-inventor data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) applications have been used to construct networks of technological knowledge collaboration at the country level over the years 2002–2015. Using eigenvector centrality as the dependent variable, the study uses fixed effect regression analyses on a panel of 171 countries, contributing to recent debates on knowledge networks and international cooperation.

Building on research in economic development, innovation and social network theory, this research finds that co-patenting with Chinese inventors is positively related to a country's centrality in global knowledge networks and that this relationship is negatively moderated by collaboration with the current most central knowledge network – namely that of the USA – suggesting a substitution effect. It also finds a partial substitution between institutional factors, IPRs protection and transparency, and collaboration with China on a country's knowledge centrality.

Regarding policymakers, the findings can be used to encourage international collaboration for increased access to new sources of knowledge that fosters innovation while keeping a close eye on local institutions, especially emerging economies that want to increase their international knowledge network centrality.

This study creates a unique panel data set and extends the social networks approach in international business literature, focusing on institutional characteristics related to participation in knowledge networks.

This study aims to identify which actors play leadership and brokerage roles in voluntary environmental collaborations and how the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of actors is associated with such voluntary networking behaviours in Cambodia.

To achieve these purposes, this study mainly uses social network analysis to capture the properties of networking behaviours in the voluntary collaborative activities underlying three main environmental issues: waste disposal, energy and water pollution. The study focusses on the collaborative efforts undertaken by actors across multiple sectors: governmental organizations, for-profits and civil society organizations.

The results show that the government plays the leading role in voluntary environmental collaborations across environmental issues; however, the actual implementation is expanded to be undertaken by non-state actors. Moreover, CSR has positive associations with networking and brokerage roles; therefore, this study reveals the utility of various voluntary policy instruments.

This study demonstrates the role of governmental initiation and its influence on non-state actors, even for voluntary environmental tools. The CSR initiatives of private actors can also be supported and encouraged by the government, which will promote participation by private actors in voluntary collaborative networks and their leading role as network facilitators.

By understanding the positions and roles of each actor in the environmental collaborative networks, environmental policymakers can better understand the possibilities and the capabilities of each actor both to improve policy design and learning and to respond to policy changes effectively.

Voluntary collaboration and CSR are non-regulated policy tools; however, they can be promoted and introduced into society by governmental organizations, and they affect each other.

It is widely accepted that coauthorship and collaboration promotes intellectual partnerships and improves the quality of publications. This paper examines the relationship between collaboration, productivity and publications in the field of family business.

The authors identify the most prolific authors, affiliations and countries and focus on the evolution of research in the field of family business. In doing so, the authors employ social network analysis to discover the structure of the networks and the ways in which authors, institutions and countries interact.

The empirical results show that collaboration is positively related to productivity, and there is significant evidence that the shaped networks exhibit small-world characteristics, a condition in which collaboration within authors becomes integrated in conjunction with time.

The findings highlight the mechanics of collaborative research production and can be useful to understand the importance of collaboration patterns to be followed in the field of family business.

The contributions are as follows: (a) application of social network analysis to model the coauthorship patterns among individuals, institutions and countries in family business; (b) distinguishing the most degree-central authors in the social network of collaborating academics; (c) investigation of the academic collaborations in family business that have the characteristics of a small-world social network and (d) suggesting a unique connection, through published keywords, between the research priorities of the most central or prolific authors with the research trends in the family business literature. The authors demonstrate that authors' collaboration becomes integrated in conjunction with time.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the management of commercial actors in strategic networks of emergency preparedness management (EPM) in developed countries and how these strategies connect to the emergency response efficiency. This study uses collaboration, strategy, and efficiency to evaluate the private governance of the food, healthcare, and transportation sectors and follows an analysis of these sectors’ management that finds an ambivalent impact on the efficiency of the worldwide supply chain network (SCN) system. This study discusses many strategic networks and nets of commercial standards with different management structures and emphasizes illustrating the EPM context, thereby offering directions for future research.

An empirical research approach and triangulation methodology was adopted to design the selection, evaluation, and contribution of the observed data and the humanitarian and business literature. An overview of strategic networks’ role in EPM in Sweden comprises several network approaches and considers the strategic value of three SCNs for response efficiency.

The study finds that strategic networks are relevant for EPM and response efficiency and can be delimited and adapted to developing countries’ demands. However, growing interest in networks’ strategic value for EPM stresses public-private collaboration as a strategic choice to achieve response efficiency. To offer strategic planning that ties demand with supply, public-private actors must collaborate in SCNs.

The study contributes to the existing literature on strategic networks, for example, industrial networks, by illustrating their strategic value for developed countries’ SCNs. It also contributes to the business literature, for example, on strategic net management. The work is original because it adopts a practical perspective involving buyers and suppliers in planning, the delimitation of their capability in nets, and the strategic value of SCN collaboration.

This study attempts to use a new source of data collection from open government data sets to identify potential academic social networks (ASNs) and defines their collaboration patterns. The purpose of this paper is to propose a direction that may advance our current understanding on how or why ASNs are formed or motivated and influence their research collaboration.

This study first reviews the open data sets in Taiwan, which is ranked as the first state in Global Open Data Index published by Open Knowledge Foundation to select the data sets that expose the government’s R&D activities. Then, based on the theory review of research collaboration, potential ASNs in those data sets are identified and are further generalized as various collaboration patterns. A research collaboration framework is used to present these patterns.

Project-based social networks, learning-based social networks and institution-based social networks are identified and linked to various collaboration patterns. Their collaboration mechanisms, e.g., team composition, motivation, relationship, measurement, and benefit-cost, are also discussed and compared.

In traditional, ASNs have usually been known as co-authorship networks or co-inventorship networks due to the limitation of data collection. This study first identifies some ASNs that may be formed before co-authorship networks or co-inventorship networks are formally built-up, and may influence the outcomes of research collaborations. These information allow researchers to deeply dive into the structure of ASNs and resolve collaboration mechanisms.

The purpose of this study was to use Watkins and Marsick model of a learning organization (1993, 1996), the dimensions of the learning organization questionnaire as a framework for interdisciplinary network collaboration and knowledge sharing.

The research team used a mixed-methods approach for data collection. Survey data was collected from 181 networks. In addition, data was collected from two focus groups with six participants each.

Results, in general, showed that the learning organization culture could be used as a framework for interdisciplinary network collaboration. In particular, results showed that shared vision, imbedded systems and knowledge sharing were key driving forces required for successful collaboration.

Theoretical and practical implications were discussed, and conditions for learning organization culture for networks were established.

People in a network era need more than training; they need ongoing, interdisciplinary, collaborative support to solve complex problems. Organizations can only work effectively if barriers to organizational learning were removed. This originality of this paper lies in applying learning organization framework at the network level.